Pianoforte
by AlkalineTeegan
Summary: I watched "Boxed In" again and noticed something interesting. That--coupled with my love of speculating on Tony's unhappy childhood--gave rise to this.


**A/N: **So I was watching "Boxed In" the other day and I had an epiphany. Okay, maybe it was more a moment of clarity but whatever. I just had to write this because when Ziva and Tony are talking about his childhood piano lessons and Ziva asks if _he_ was any good, Tony smiles sadly and says, "Yeah, _she_ was."

* * *

Young Anthony DiNozzo stood like a sentinel. He didn't move to the soft music he strained to hear, but, oh, how he wanted to. He couldn't let it distract him. He had to protect her.

The faint notes grew harder, harsher, and he knew in a way that no little boy should ever know that she was coming apart in the next room. He didn't need to see the tears he knew would be sliding down her beautiful face: He heard her undoing in the notes wrung from slender, too-pale fingers.

He waited for the once-pretty music to become rough and ugly before he reluctantly gave up his post outside the room. He was torn between protecting her from _him_ and protecting her from herself. Memories of the angry scars on her delicate wrists peeking out from expensive sleeves while she taught him to make lovely sounds drove him into the music room.

The room itself was huge, the vaulted ceilings making it seem even larger. Windows lined one wall and he could see stars twinkling in the distant black backdrop of the winter sky. They were calling for snow tomorrow and he knew his classmates would be doing silly snow dances in hopes of having the next day off. He swallowed hard at the thought of being confined to the big, empty house all day.

"Mama?" he called softly, uncertainly. Maybe this time she wouldn't be crying. Maybe this time she would sweep him into her warm embrace and gently guide his small hands to the keys. Maybe this time she would sob, and he would be unable to reach her through her veil of grief. Maybe this time she would backhand him to the floor and scream at him not to bleed onto the expensive rug.

Sometimes he thought the uncertainty was the hardest part.

This time, she sat unmoving, unknowingly mimicking his stillness as he had stood vigil over her. Her hands were on the keys, but she had stopped choking chaos from the fine instrument. She wore a long white robe, and he knew it would have come loose by now to reveal some silky nightgown that barely covered her lithe body.

He approached her and winced at his reflection in the veneer of the impossibly shiny baby grand piano that took up lonely residence in the center of the room. The large instrument didn't even come close to filling the cavernous space. His split lip leered back at him from the finish, mocking his weakness. He wondered fleetingly if she had heard his choked cry of pain upon being hit. He tried to tell himself there was no way she could have heard over the piano.

The distance between them alone would suffice to mute his anguish from her.

"Mama?" he tried again, hoping desperately that she would hear the gumminess of his soft, swollen words and turn to comfort him.

There were flickering candles and a rocks glass in front of her.

He stopped about two feet behind her, watching her shoulders begin a slow shake. He heard her breathing hitch and he could hold back no longer. He flung himself up onto the bench and into her embrace, allowing himself to be wrapped in the relative safety of trembling arms. He knew men the world over would gladly die to be in this close proximity to her ethereal beauty, but all he could think of was how to make her stop crying.

"It's gonna be okay, Mama," he said, his words muffled by silk and swollen tissue.

She pulled back slowly and his little heart broke when her face crumpled at the sight of her bruised boy. She lifted a hand to his mouth and gently probed the damage. Tears stung his eyes—soft green mirrors of her own—at the contact. He saw his blood staining her once-pristine robe and gasped softly. He breathed a small sigh of relief when her hand cupped—not slapped—his cheek and she pressed lush red lips to his forehead.

"Oh, Tony-Baloney," she said softly, a heartbreaking parody of a smile twisting those lips.

He smiled a genuine grin at the silly nickname, even though it pulled at his damaged mouth and he was wary of the good humor disappearing. Even the newest of the staff knew her moods were like quicksilver and not to take her emotions at face value.

She plucked a tissue from the lid of the piano and pressed it gingerly to his wound. The graceful movement made him flinch, but not from the painful pressure. He realized there was always a box of tissues within her reach these days and that simple fact broke his fissured heart all over again.

She held him without speaking or moving for several minutes. But then he felt the change in the atmosphere as clearly as if someone had turned on the air conditioning full-blast.

She removed the bloody tissue, crushed it in her long fingers and tossed it aside. "He loves you, Anthony," she said, her tone serious again.

He blinked at the words but did not mourn the loss of her tenderness. He cherished every moment had with her when she was the loving mother he remembered from his earliest days. When she loved him without interference from an abusive husband, drink or pills.

"Will you teach me something new, Mama?" he asked, hope shining in his brilliant eyes.

She regarded him with blank eyes for a moment before nudging his small body off the bench and saying, "It is late, Anthony. It is time for you to go to bed."

He nodded and made his way out of his favorite room in the house, trying to hold in the sob building in his throat until he was out of reach of her sensitive musician's ears. His eyes caught sight of those tall windows as he passed.

It had begun to snow.

* * *

**A/N: **The word "piano" is a shortened form of the old-fashioned _pianoforte_, from Italian _piano_ ("soft") + _forte_ ("strong").


End file.
